Take up the White Man’s burden— In patience to abide,To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride;By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain,To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain.

Take up the White Man’s burden— The savage wars of peace—Fill full the mouth of famine And bid the sickness cease;And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought,Watch sloth and heathen folly Bring all your hope to naught.

Take up the White Man’s burden— No tawdry rule of kings,But toil of serf and sweeper— The tale of common things.The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread,Go make them with your living, And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man’s burden— And reap his old reward:The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard—The cry of hosts ye humor (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:“Why brought ye us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden— Ye dare not stoop to less—Nor call too loud on freedom To cloke your weariness;By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do,The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your God and you.

Take up the White Man’s burden— Have done with childish days—The lightly proffered laurel, The easy, ungrudged praise.Comes now, to search your manhood Through all the thankless years,Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers!

“The White Man’s Burden.” This poem first appeared in the February 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine with the subtitle “The United States and the Philippine Islands,” referring to the former’s acquisition of the latter as a result of the Spanish-American War. Shortly after its publication, Kipling was in New York City suffering from pneumonia, a case of which did in fact kill his six-year-old daughter. For four years in the 1890s he had lived in his wife’s native Vermont, where he wrote The Jungle Book and Captains Courageous.